Where Am I?

“Space seems to be either tamer or more inoffensive than time; we’re forever meeting people who have watches, very seldom people who have compasses. We always need to know what time it is (who still knows how to deduce it from the position of the sun?) but we never ask ourselves where we are. We think we know…”

-Georges Perec-

Feeling displaced, it seemed like the time had come to ask into it.

Judging by the quilted charcoal sky, this must have occurred in the hours between night and day or that malleable period in which what’s bright becomes the dark.

I discovered that I was uncertain as to where, indeed, I was.

I cast about, but given the diffuse and myopic atmosphere, my bearings were difficult to draw.

My question just grew longer.

Within the nondescript what seek we to describe?

My whereabouts. For even about can provide a circumference of radial lines, fashioned carefully.

It seemed to me that I must have been partway. Having begun some time ago, though ill-remembered, I must have set out in some direction, making this a point along that plane or trajectory, on the way to the someplace I am going. But where? Whereto? And wherefrom? (the brain adds wherefore?)

I’m uncertain.

Most people do certain things at certain times, so time must be a deed, I guess. Needing neither to eat, nor to relieve myself, it must not be too early or late, nor a mealtime. The dim and the greys, they confuse me.

The ground being solid, but whether a road or a path or a field lying fallow, I could not say. A fogging has thickened and the chalky gravel pierced with grasses and weeds does not provide location.

The best I can wager is midst. I appear to be in the midst of things: of my life, of this land, of my journey and day (or evening) – beyond this it just is not clear.

By the look of my hands and my feet – we say “character” – it would seem I am no longer “young.” Hair has grown dark in places, I have visible veins, and numerous scarrings and wrinkles. I never expect them to grow and they haven’t for many years, yet they can’t be called webbed with their linings, nor aged. The skin is tanned and supple, not spotted, the knuckles aren’t gnarly or constricted. Improvement or beauty I do not anticipate, but it appears I am not quite undone, not decrepit.

I’d guess I am “over the hill,” as they say, but still in reach of my prime. A certain flair or panache, but the style of the action requires more will. And attention. Strong, yet not powerful. Active, not quite agile. Competent, not convincing.

I sit down. The weeds and the grass are grey-green, grown in tufts. The gravel is packed and yet dusty. The stones are not worn but all small.

I trace my palms over the surface.

My legs feel the pain of my back.

I rise up.

I would find it much easier to lean.

I step forth.

I smell no particular smells – almost rain, dusty remnants, a particular quality of air, but what? (From where?) Neither salted nor briny exactly, I must not be near to the sea. Not fuelly or floral, musty nor pale, I scratch off city and countryside, forests or plains. And not fertile. The air is just as you’d imagine it wherever the sky meets the land – in the absence of obvious effects (are they causes?) – just me.

It hasn’t grown lighter, nor darkened.

I breathe.

From the sound of it (silent) and its fullness, my lungs must be doing their job, performing their roles without much complaint. As also my heart and my brain, liver and plumbworks. I think I may have heard insects or birds, but the distance so vast I’d fail to call the sense knowledge. And I mentioned I cannot see far. These conditions.